


Human Shield

by HotGoatCheese



Series: Whumptober 2019 [4]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Gen, Guns, Gunshot Wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 05:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20902208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotGoatCheese/pseuds/HotGoatCheese
Summary: There wasn't suppose to be violence today.





	Human Shield

There wasn't suppose to be violence today. 

This particular country on this particular planet celebrated the Summer Solstice with the making, selling, buying, and giving of homemade crafts and gifts, and Brian was allowing himself an afternoon to indulge the delusion such a tradition would go over well with his crew and picking through a local bizarre for things the others might like. 

He'd just found a knife, sharp enough and intricate enough and well-balanced enough to have him torn between reconsidering the hypothetical nature of this shopping trip and the long-term ethical complications of buying Jonny D'Ville a knife when the first gunshot rang out. 

Funny, how even thousands of years of adapting to the worst of this sort of thing didn't make the moments it was happening any less of a blur. The men with guns wore masks. They were shouting things Brian didn't understand, despite being in the common language of this area. Everyone, including himself, found themselves flat on their bellies waiting for whatever was happening to pass. Brian could hear the middle-aged woman who'd carved the knife he'd been admiring praying under her breath.

When the sirens began in the distance and the gunmen started to panic, Brian stood up. Maybe it wasn't the smartest choice, but all things considered, he had to at least try to reason with them. Turning themselves in now would go better than fighting and being caught. At least from what little Brian knew of this culture. They laughed in his face, or one of them did. Another went around behind him and grabbed him around the throat. 

Really, they could have accomplished much the same effect by holding him at gunpoint, but instead the man choose to put Brian in a lose choke-hold and walk him toward the entrance of the bizarre. Brian tried to suggest taking a side exit, but the moment he spoke the arm around his throat tightened so abruptly that he cut of speaking in surprise despite the lack of airflow to have been interrupted. 

He largely cooperated with them, optimistically hoping that they would get past the police line without incident and let him be. His shopping day was ruined, but he could just go back to the Aurora and relax. Try again on one of the other continents tomorrow. Of course it wasn't so simple. The moment the gunmen were out the main entrance of the bizarre, the police opened fire. 

Being shot was, at this point in his existence, nothing new for Brian. While it didn't hurt as much as it might have, it was still a uniquely uncomfortable experience. He'd already been uncomfortable with how his hostage-taker was pulling him backwards slightly, bending his spine awkwardly. A hail of bullets striking him all through his torso, a few up in his shoulders. Strangely his head wasn't struck. He'd imagine his head ought to be struck a lot. Especially if they were so much as trying to aim behind him. 

Maybe the worst part was realizing that they weren't even really trying to aim behind him.

It was a little bit skill, a little bit the fact that Brian retained the unconscious balancing movements that made him easier to maneuver, and a little bit the basic level of luck that anyone needed to get through a fire fight in any form, but the gunmen managed to get out of the police trap. They hid behind Brian, using him as cover and firing back on the police as they escaped. Brian, for his part, was shot full of holes. 

When the shooting died down, Brian got his bearings the best he could. They weren't far from the skyscraper where Marius had opened a practice to play with people's minds for the next few years. He opened his mouth to ask the gunmen to drop him off near there. 

No sound came out. 

A moment later Brian realized why. One of the highest-striking bullets had punctured near enough his voice box to jam the gears. He couldn't speak. Couldn't even scream for help if he chose.

The fact that they dropped him face-down just off the walkway in the, thankfully empty gutter, made it worse. He was shot full of holes and needed time for initial repairs to make him mobile again. He couldn't so much as scream for help if he wanted, not that doing so would get him anything but sent to a hospital, which would be awkward at best here. 

No, best to just lie here until he recovered.


End file.
